Indiana Public Media News

B-Line Gets Award, Switchyard Park Budget Due In September

Posted July 26, 2012

The Switchyard Park, along the B-Line Trail, will not be funded at all through the Parks and Recreation budget for the coming year.

Photo: Julie Rawe/WFIU News

The City of Bloomington hopes to make this former train switchyard into a park.

Bloomington Parks and Recreation Director Mick Renneisen was presented with a surprise award Wednesday evening designating the B-Line Trail as a National Recreation Trail Wednesday night during budget hearings. The Department of Interior issued the award, which makes the B-Line eligible for increased access to federal funding.

After receiving the award, Renneisen told the city council his department will present plans for the Switchyard Park – to be constructed along the trail — in September. He says the plans were developed after receiving large amounts of public input.

“Key things were performance space, large community event type gathering space that could hold something like the taste of Bloomington or The Bloomington Pops Orchestra, any number of movies or concerts or things we do now in other parks that would be done on a grander larger scale,” Renneisen says.

Renneisen he’ll also have a construction cost estimate by September, but none of 2013’s projected Parks and Rec budget will be used to pay for the park. Renneisen says funding will come from grants and money that has already been appropriated and may include a bond issue in the future.

Overall, Renneisen’s projected Parks and Recreation budget is down one percent from 2012.

Kyle Clayton is a WFIU news producer. He is currently studying journalism at Indiana University and comes to WFIU following an internship in the fall of 2011. After serving in the U.S. Army, he returned home to Indiana in 2008 to begin his education and pursue his interests in writing.

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